A moving photographic essay, Ruins of Detroit, from Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre documents the vacant skeleton of a once thriving US manufacturing city. More photos can be found via Time Photo Gallery.

Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes…the volatile result of the change of eras and the fall of empires. This fragility leads us to watch them one very last time: to be dismayed, or to admire, it makes us wonder about the permanence of things.